The Missing Madonna (7 page)

“Not funny,” Kate said.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were crying.”

“Now what in the world do I have to cry about?” She turned, buried her head in her husband’s shoulder, and sobbed.

Poor Jack. She knew he must be bewildered. Yet he stood there holding her, saying nothing, just waiting.

“Actually, it’s just your mother,” she finally managed. “I called her from work to ask what I could bring for dinner tonight and she said, ‘Nothing.’ ” Kate blew her nose.

Jack stared down at her, frowning. The look on his face was patient but puzzled. “I’ll bet poor Ma thought that would make you happy.”

“Oh, that’s not why I’m unhappy.” Kate pushed herself away. “How can men be so thick?”

Jack ran his fingers through his wavy hair. “Did I miss something?”

“I’m not pregnant again this month.” Kate plopped down on the corner of their old-fashioned brass bed. The springs creaked and jingled under her weight.

“Can’t say we didn’t try.” Smiling, Jack sat down beside her.

“Both your sisters will be at dinner tonight. And I know your mother is dying to be able to tell them that at least one of her children is giving her a grandchild.”

“Did she say that?”

Kate shook her head. “No, but I can just tell.”

“I thought we’d already settled that. It’s not whether Ma wants a grandchild that’s important. It’s what you and I want, Kate. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. But you and I do want one.
And it’s just not happening, Jack. As hard as we try, I just cannot seem to get pregnant.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief. “Kate”—he gently kneaded her spine as he spoke—“trying isn’t all it takes. Remember those illustrations in your biology book. Those little wiggly-looking things. Or didn’t they have that chapter at the girls’ school?”

“Don’t try to be funny, Jack. This is not funny.”

“For chrissake, Kate, we’ve only been trying since around Christmas. That’s not even five months; and February, you remember, is a short one. Relax! Let’s give it a chance.

“As a matter of fact, if it would put your mind at ease”—Jack moved closer—“we could give it another try right now, before we go to my mother’s.”

“You don’t suppose God is punishing us?” she asked, pretending not to feel his hand under her loose robe.

“Punishing us for what?”

“For living together all those years before we got married.”

“I don’t believe you!” Putting his hands on her bare shoulders, Jack turned her toward him.

“Let me take another look. Is this the same wild-eyed feminist I lived with all those years? The one who never wanted to ‘ruin our relationship’ with marriage? The one I nearly had to club and drag to the altar to give her some respectability?”

Bouncing his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, he ogled her, flicking an imaginary cigar. “Ah ha!” he said. “It looks like the same one.”

“You’ve made your point.” Kate closed the front of the flannel robe and hugged it tightly. She pulled her knees up under her chin. “Maybe He’s punishing me,” she said.

“Punishing you for what? Although I must admit you would try the patience of the ordinary run-of-the-mill saint.”

“For not wanting to have a baby at first. Now when I want one, I can’t have one.”

“Jeez, Kate!” Jack stood up, stuck one hand in his pocket, and held the back of his head with the other one. He walked to the window and stared out at a sea of backyards.

Kate knew from experience that was Jack’s ultimate frustration pose. She waited, not daring to say anything until he got hold of himself.

For several moments he just stood there. Finally he turned, came back to the edge of the bed, and sat down. “If that isn’t the damnedest, guilt-ridden, Irish-Catholic thing I’ve ever heard you say.” He put his hands back on her shoulders. “And I was worrying about your biology book! I should have been worrying about your theology book. What the hell kind of a God do you believe in?”

“I know you’re right.” Kate snuggled close to her husband. “But sometimes I just can’t help thinking—”

He put his finger over her lips. She could feel his arm squeezing her tight. “Do me a favor, hon”—he rocked her back and forth—“don’t think. If it is really worrying you, why not make an appointment with a gynecologist? He . . . or she”—he corrected himself quickly—“can figure out if there is anything physically wrong. That will take care of the biology part, and as for the theology part, ask your friend Mary Helen,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. “Now, there’s a gal who’ll really set you straight. I’ll bet my badge she could make a Jesuit theologian pale.”

*  *  *

The drive from Kate and Jack’s house in the Outer Richmond District to Mama Bassetti’s in the Sunset District was quiet. Kate enjoyed the silence. It gave her time to compose herself before she got to her mother-in-law’s house. She suspected Jack’s two younger sisters would be there already. Mama had found a real bargain
on roast beef at Petrini’s Market, she said, and decided to invite the kids over to enjoy it. At least that was her excuse. Kate marveled at the woman’s creativity in thinking up reasons to lure her family to dinner.

Kate was feeling calmer when they entered Golden Gate Park at 43rd and Fulton on the Avenue of Lakes. The area was deserted, except for a few walkers who had braved the early-evening fog creeping up the Avenues from the ocean and two older women who sat bundled up on one of the green wooden benches bordering the lake, gossiping. The pair seemed oblivious of a mallard at their feet, quacking noisily at the brown-paper sack one woman held in her hand.

Jack rolled up the window as they passed downwind behind the Buffalo Paddock. “Even if you can’t see them you can smell them,” he said, patting Kate’s knee.

He stopped the car at the arterial on John F. Kennedy Drive, letting a jogger and a cyclist with an empty baby seat on the back of his bike cross before he took his turn. Looking at the empty seat, Kate could feel a new lump starting in her throat.

“What was it you were telling me about Mary Helen, hon?” Jack asked suddenly.

“What brought that up?” She could hardly speak.

Jack pointed to several elderly women in tennis shoes walking quickly down the path. “Association, I guess.”

Twisting a thick lock of her red hair around her index finger, Kate pushed it into a tight curl. “I guess I should have shown a little more concern,” she said. “We know from experience that the old girl is no wolf-crier.”

“You said a buddy of hers hasn’t been heard from for a couple of days?”

“Yes, a woman she goes to OWL meetings with. Another graduate of Mount St. Francis. Way back when.”

“And you old alums stick together, right?”

Kate nodded. They drove past a mound bright with blue forget-me-nots. Rhododendrons bordered the
lawn. Even though they were past their prime, a few clusters of hot-pink blossoms still clung to the leathery green shrubs.

On their right, set back from the road, a battered sign read
BERCUT EQUITATION FIELD.
Idly, Kate wondered, as she always did when they passed the spot, if she’d ever seen a horse there. So far, negative.

Suddenly, Jack’s last remark registered. “Who’s an old alum?” She whacked his leg.

Her husband laughed. “You don’t think she suspects foul play, do you?” They turned left on Lincoln Way.

“She always suspects foul play. Jack. And the worst part is, she’s usually right on target.”

Jack’s guffaw startled her. “I know what let’s do.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Let’s turn her and Sister Eileen over to my old pal, Ron Honore, in Missing Persons.”

He turned toward her with an uncharacteristic glint in his eye. Honore was one of the few people she knew who could get under her husband’s skin. Jack said it was because of his cockiness. Kate suspected it had more to do with Honore’s reputation as a lady-killer.

“And the man is downright ugly,” Jack always said.

“Well, the guys don’t call him Don Juan Ron for nothing,” Kate always answered.

“I’ve been dying to get the better of that guy since we left the Academy.” Jack stopped at the arterial. “If those two gals can’t rattle his cage, then nobody can.”

Wednesday morning was just plain gloomy. Mary Helen pulled the collar of her Aran sweater up around her ears, stuck her hands deep into its narrow pockets, and slammed the convent door behind her.

“Overcast, with a slight chance of rain,” the radio announcer had said on the early-morning news, but
gloomy
would have been a much more accurate description.

Head down, she started up the hill toward the college. Yesterday had been so beautiful, but this morning the asphalt driveway was shiny and slick. It must have sprinkled during the night.

At the top of the hill, she stopped to catch her breath. Students, late for the first class of the morning, hurried across the nearly deserted campus.

Dark, heavy clouds made the sky seem lower, and in the gloom the lilies of the Nile bordering the circular drive were almost purple.

“Sister Mary Helen, telephone!” The campus loudspeaker startled her. “Sister Mary Helen, telephone!” a nasal voice repeated, crackling the message out over the hill. What the switchboard operator lacked in enunciation, she more than made up for in volume.

Mary Helen checked her watch. It’s just after eight o’clock, she thought, hurrying toward the main office.
Who in the world would be calling at this hour? She felt a little apprehensive. Early-morning and late-night phone calls always did that to her. It couldn’t be Caroline Coughlin already, or could it?

*  *  *

At eight-twenty sharp, Caroline’s root beer-colored Cadillac glided up in front of the convent. Mary Helen barely had time to change her sweater and leave a note for Eileen telling her where she would be.

“Hop in the front with us, Sister.” Lucy Lyons shoved the heavy door open and, scooting over toward Caroline, patted the broad white leather seat beside her.

“I couldn’t wait another minute,” Caroline said as soon as Mary Helen pulled the car door shut.

“To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even wait this long,” Mary Helen confessed, wondering how Caroline was going to take to being upstaged. “Sister Eileen and I dropped by her apartment building yesterday.”

“And did you two find out anything?” Caroline’s tone seemed a bit icy, but Lucy studied her with anxious eyes.

Mary Helen pretended not to notice the tone and squeezed Lucy’s hand. “Unfortunately, not a thing more than you told me on the phone Monday evening.”

Without a word, Caroline drove down the hill and onto Turk Street. “Since none of us heard from Erma yesterday and since no one yet knows her exact whereabouts,” she said finally, “I suggest we make every effort to locate her. It is just not like her to leave without saying a word.”

The root-beer Cadillac stopped for a light. “Perhaps we can best establish the whereabouts of our mutual friend if we all stick together.” Caroline leaned forward and gave Mary Helen her dowager-queen smile.

“That Mr. Finn did say she went to visit relatives.” Ignoring the jab, Mary Helen tried to be calm and reasonable.
Bickering among themselves wouldn’t benefit anyone, especially not Erma Duran.

“And didn’t he tell Noelle that he thought they were in St. Louis? Although—I have to agree with you—it is just not like her not to have called someone, if only so we wouldn’t worry.”

Seemingly appeased, Caroline turned on Divisadero Street and made her way into the heart of the crowded Western Addition.

“Immediately after I called you, I picked Lucy up,” she said, as if Lucy weren’t present. “She said she never heard Erma speak of any St. Louis relatives.”

Mary Helen glanced at the woman sitting between them. Poor Lucy looked exactly as though she had been picked up—
snatched
might be more like it—from right in the middle of whatever she had been doing at eight o’clock in the morning. Her faded violet jogging suit was damp at the knees, and there was mud on the toes of her worn Nikes. Her makeup looked slapdash and her gray braid was badly in need of replaiting. The dark circles under her eyes showed she had spent a sleepless night.

“If anything should happen to Erma because we didn’t act, I for one would never forgive myself.” Caroline took her eyes off the traffic-clogged street long enough to peer around Lucy. “Isn’t that the way you feel, girls?”

“Of course,” Mary Helen answered. She wished Caroline would keep her eyes on the road and stop tailgating.

“Please stop saying ‘if anything should happen to Erma,’ ” Lucy snapped with uncharacteristic harshness. “I’m sorry, Caroline,” she apologized quickly, “but I really don’t even want to begin thinking that way.”

They drove for several blocks in an awkward silence. Mary Helen stared out the window. All their nerves must be on edge. She tried to concentrate on the mixture
of stately homes and flats above small storefronts that lined the busy street and think of something to say. She wondered for a moment if she would ever get used to seeing a Victorian, complete with towers, turrets, and Turkish cupolas, atop a Chinese take-out restaurant.